"Elizabeth! What a lovely surprise!" Madam Sprout quickly put down her gardening trowel and stripped off the soil stained gloves protecting her hands from the thorns of the prickly pear she had been pruning. Her round face beamed with pleasure as she approached her former student.
"Madam Sprout, it's so good to see you." Lizzie hugged her former Head of House, heedless of the dirt and chlorophyll that was rubbing off onto her stylish robes of fine wool.
"And these must be the little angels I've heard so much about!" The teacher let go of the younger woman and beamed at the three girls standing behind their mother. "What lovely little girls you have, Lizzie. Those looks of yours did a lot to soften up the Snape genes, I see."
"They did turn our rather nice, didn't they? Unfortunately I doubt any of them will be a Hufflepuff."
"No Hufflepuffs, eh?" Madam Sprout smiled and leaned down. "And just what houses do you think you'll be in?"
The tallest straightened her shoulders and smiled. "I plan to be in Ravenclaw."
The next one in line grinned mischievously. "I'm going to be in Gryffindor."
The tiny little toddler plucked her thumb from her mouth. "I SNAKE!"
The women laughed, amused by the sincerity in all three girls. "So, tell me, what brings you to Hogwarts, Lizzie? I'm afraid your eldest still has a few years to go before you can leave her with us."
"I thought I'd stop by and pay a visit to my step-son. Normally I would have left the girls with their father, but I'm a bit put out with him at the moment, and my mother isn't as wily as she used to be. These three walk all over her if you give them the chance."
"Hmm… take after their father's side of the family, do they? Well, at least they come by it naturally. I believe Severus has a class at this time, Gryffindor and Slytherin. You might want to wait until it's over. If we pull him out of there now that lot will go for blood."
"The Headmaster is still trying to get those houses to play nice, is he?"
"I am hoping for a truce, at the very least." Everyone spun around to see Albus Dumbledore smiling from the doorway of the greenhouse. "It's good to see you again, Mrs. Snape. I hear you have been very busy. Why don't you all join me in my office and you can tell us all about it over tea."
Trinity reached out and tugged on her eldest sister's sleeve. "What?"
"That Santa?"
Albus laughed. "No, I'm afraid that I am nowhere near as popular or as well liked as Saint Nicholas, my dear. However, I do have some rather nice biscuits in my office for tea, and perhaps a few things a bright little girl such as you would find interesting."
With the promise of biscuits and possible playthings, Trinity toddled over to take the tall man's hand. Catherine gave a long suffering sigh as her other sister hurried after the pair, shooting of the silliest questions one could possible ask a man as great as Albus Dumbledore.
~***~
"Don't worry, Elizabeth. Sir Nicholas is an excellent guide of the school. The girls are perfectly safe with him."
"I'm more worried if the school is safe from my daughters."
The headmaster smiled as he poured Lizzie, Madam Sprout and himself all cups of tea. "Do you still take yours with cream and sugar?"
"Yes, please." She accepted the delicate china cup and inhaled the vapors rising from the surface of the tea. "I suppose you've already heard about my husband's latest attempt to drive his son and heir insane." She arched one perfectly shaped, honey-gold brow as the aging wizard chuckled. "I hardly think it is a laughing matter."
"Forgive me, but if you had been the one blessed with listening to nearly an hour of his ranting, you'd be laughing as well."
Madam Sprout looked mystified. "What's the matter with Severus?"
Lizzie sighed and shook her head. "My idiot of a husband signed a betrothal contract in his name under that stupid marriage law."
The Herbology teacher began to choke on her tea. "S…Severus? Married! Why would Augustus even begin to think that was a good idea?"
"I think he may have been drunk at the time." Lizzie added three more sugar cubes to her tea.
"But who is the poor girl?"
Lizzie was about to answer, but the Headmaster cut across her smoothly. "Severus does not wish for the identity of his betrothed to be common knowledge just yet. I believe he holds out hope that our dear Mrs. Snape will be successful in her efforts to have the law repealed." He gave Elizabeth a warning look, which she quickly took to heart. Madam Sprout, however, was a teacher and an extremely clever one at that.
"Sweet Merlin! Albus, tell me he isn't betrothed to a student!"
Lizzie signed again. "I'm afraid that he did. I do hope that Severus isn't going to make things difficult for her."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Elizabeth. Severus knows full well who is to blame in this matter and he's being uncharacteristically reasonable about it all."
Mrs. Snape looked rather like someone had stuck her in the back of the head with a shovel. "Well that certainly isn't the Professor Snape I remember."
~***~
"And if you come this way, I can show you to the kitchens. I'm sure that the House Elves would be most grateful should I bring three lovely young ladies to visit them. They adore plying a body with sweets and cakes."
Catherine and Jennifer eagerly followed the hovering form of Sir Nicholas towards yet another flight of stairs. Trinity was growing very weary of going up. Her chubby little legs had trouble keeping up with her older sisters and the funny, floating man kept taking them up! Hadn't he ever heard of down? With a tired little huff, the toddler decided that she wouldn't follow her sisters and the funny, floating man any longer. Down was easier. She wanted to go down.
Down was easy, and there were lots and lots of stairs in this castle. And there were lots of pictures that moved, like the long hallway in her parents' home with all the cranky people her father said were her 'ant sitters', whatever that meant. She never understood why you would want to sit on ants. And there were metal men who stood on platforms and never moved, although sometimes they did laugh. Catherine said that this was a school, and that they would all come here when they were old enough, but that she would have to wait the longest because she was the littlest. Actually, Catherine had said that she would have to wait because she was the baby.
Trinity really hated being called 'the baby'. Babies had to wear diapers because they weren't smart enough to know when to go potty. She knew perfectly well when she had to go potty. And babies weren't clever enough to feed themselves. Trinity knew perfectly well how to feed herself. And babies had trouble going down steps. Trinity was having very little trouble with that particular challenge. Going down steps was much easier than climbing up them.
She liked this place. There were lots of things to see here. She wondered how long they were staying. She also wondered what was behind that big door off to the side of the corridor. It was standing open and looked like it had more steps going down. Ever curious, she peered down into what looked like a stone hallway lined with flickering torches before she dared to enter. She stuck her thumb into her mouth, knowing her mother would scold her if she saw her doing it (but what else did Mum expect her to do when she took away her binky?) and started down the steps into the stone hallway.
It was full of little twists and turns, much like the hedge maze in the garden. Trinity had never been in the hedge maze of course, everyone thought she was too little, but she had looked at it for hours and hours from the nursery window. It looked very interesting. There weren't as many pictures down here as there were upstairs, and there were a lot more torches. The flickering lights made the shadows on the wall dance and shimmy, and there was a faint drip-drip-dripping noise, like water from a leaky faucet. Trinity listened very hard to try and figure out where the noise was coming from, but another sound caught her attention.
"Mr. Finnegan! If I catch your bringing one of your idiotic magazines into this class again, it will mean one hundred points from Gryffindor!"
It sounded rather like Daddy when he was yelling at the people in the toy shop that time she had wanted a tricycle painted bright orange and they had insisted tricycles only came in red. In the end she had gotten her orange tricycle. Daddy was very good at getting her what she wanted. All she had to do was tremble her bottom lip a bit and look like she was going to cry. It was very much like magic.
She turned a corner and saw a room at the very end. The door was open and there were people inside. Trinity's little patent leather shoes made soft clicking noises on the stone floor as she walked towards the room. Just as she was reaching the door, a man as tall as Daddy swept by, his black robes billowing out behind him. It wasn't Daddy, of course. Daddy was much wider than this man, but there was still something oddly familiar about him.
She walked into the room to stand just behind the tall man with the shoulder length black hair. She had her left thumb still in her mouth as her right hand was behind her, toying with the ribbon belt that adorned the frilly dress Nana had insisted on her wearing today. She didn't really like to wear frills, they got in the way when you wanted to play in the dirt, but Mum said that they needed to keep Nana happy because she wouldn't be with them much longer. Mum had never said where Nana was going, though.
"Now class, I cannot impress upon you enough the importance of paying attention to what you are doing today. The instructions to today's potion are on the board. This is a double lesson, so you should have just enough time to complete the project if you begin… now."
She didn't understand all of what the tall man said, but it must have been important because all of the other people in the room began to move very quickly. He was very much like Daddy, because people tended to move very quickly when Daddy spoke, too. Trinity continued to follow behind him, a few steps distance between her feet and his robes. They walked past one of the many tables in the room where a girl sat behind one of the funny pots all the people had. It was the girl who noticed Trinity first.
"Uhm… excuse me, Professor Snape…"
"Miss Granger, I doubt very seriously that you have any questions and I have no patience for your showing off today."
"But, Professor…"
"Be SILENT Miss Granger!" The man never turned around to address the girl, but appeared to be more interested in a couple of boys near the front of the class. "Thomas! Finnegan! You have your ingredients, NOW SIT DOWN!"
Trinity was so shocked by the sudden raise in tone that she jumped. It became apparent to her that perhaps it was best to obey the tall man. Looking around she saw that there was a stool empty next to the girl who had tried to speak before. She walked over to it and took her thumb out of her mouth long enough to use both hands to try and climb up onto the seat. The stool began to tip from her weight, but the girl reached out quickly and steadied it for her. Trinity made it to the top and gave the girl her most adorable grin before turning around on the seat and putting her thumb back into her mouth.
She looked around and watched the other people in the room. They were all smashing stuff up in little bowls with funny little things that looked like fat sticks. Trinity didn't have a bowl or funny stick, but the girl next to her had a long-handled spoon she wasn't using and a pile of what looked like dried flowers. She could smash up stuff like the other people if she had those. Leaning over she took a handful of the dried flowers and the unused spoon. Placing the flowers in front of her on the table she began to hit them firmly with the spoon.
It was quite fun to smash up the dried flowers. So much fun that Trinity failed to notice that the noise she was making attracted the attention of the tall man. It wasn't until his shadow fell over her that she looked up. He didn't look exactly like Daddy, but he did have Daddy's nose and black eyes. He was looking down at her with a stern expression. Her response was to give him another one of her adorable smiles.
"Miss Granger? Why is there a child in the seat next to you?"
The girl next to her must be 'Miss Granger' because she began to talk. "I don't know, Professor. She just came into the classroom."
"Why did you not say anything?"
"I tried, Professor. You told me to be quiet."
The tall man arched a brow, just like Daddy did sometimes. He looked down his long nose at her. "Who are you?"
"I Twinity."
"And how did you get here?"
Well that was a rather silly question. "Walked down." Weren't grown-ups supposed to be clever?
The tall man opened his mouth as though to speak, but fell silent as voices sounded from the hall. "I told the two of you to keep an eye on her! You were supposed to hold her hand at all times."
"But Mum, she wouldn't hold our hands. We tried."
"You should have insisted, Catherine. You're the oldest. You're supposed to look out for your sisters."
"Everything will be fine, Elizabeth. She couldn't have gone far." The nice Santa man came through the door with her mother and sisters behind him. "Severus, we seem to have… oh. There you are, Miss Snape."
"Trinity!" Her mother rushed forward and scooped her up into her arms, hugging her close. "What in Heaven's name are you doing down here?"
"I smash flowers." Trinity pointed to the little pile of slightly flattened blossoms on the table.
"Severus, I believe you remember your father's wife, Elizabeth Snape."
"I recall something about her, certainly." The tall man nodded his head at her mum. "To what does Hogwarts owe this pleasure, Ma'am?"
"Actually, I came to have a word with you. We were going to wait until your class was over, but Trinity got away from us."
"Are you really our brother?" All heads turned towards Jenny, who was peering up at the tall man curiously. Cathy rolled her eyes.
"Of course he is, you idiot." Trinity's biggest sister stepped forward and curtsied. "How-do-you-do, Severus. I'm Catherine, and this my sister, Jennifer. That's Trinity. She's the baby."
"I NOT BABY!" Trinity threw the spoon still in her hand at her sister's head. Her mum frowned.
"No throwing! You know better." Trinity glared and folded her chubby arms over her chest, shooting daggers at Catherine. "I do apologize for the interruption, Severus, but might I have a word with you once your class is over?"
"I can hardly wait." The tall man didn't look very happy to see them there, but that didn't seem to matter to anyone else. Trinity placed her head on her mother's shoulder and stuck her thumb back into her mouth. "Now, if you will all excuse me, I have a class to teach."
"Of course, Severus. Thank you for looking after your little sister for us. I'm afraid Lizzie was quite upset."
"It was nothing, Headmaster. You should be thanking Miss Granger. She was the one who saw fit to keep… Trinity… entertained." Mum suddenly looked over towards Miss Granger whose skin had gone very pink.
"We won't keep you any longer, then. I'll arrange for a nice tea to be sent to your quarters after class, then. Good-day, Severus." With that, the nice Santa man led them all from the room, leaving the tall man behind with the people and their funny pots.